Circus
by GamberDragon
Summary: FE9/10. Shinon/Mia. Mia drags Shinon along to the Crimean Circus. As anyone might guess, Shinon isn't a circus person. Early Birthday Giftfic.


**Circus**

Tormod: Holy Circus!!! I wanna go!! Wooo, who cares about the disclaimer when there's a circus?! *runs off*

TSaGD: …I do not own Fire Emblem or anything else you might see here, except for the plot.

Heather: Wow…Shinon is soo lucky… Huh, I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be jealous of that grumpy bastard.

Sothe: Reviews are loved by the author.

Micaiah: The warning section is surprisingly lacking today.

A/N: Early Birthday gift-fic for Lynnie Kleriker… So, Mia drags Shinon along to the Crimean Circus. Yep, as you could guess, circuses and Shinon just don't mix.

Pairing(s): Shinon/Mia, implied Tormod/Mystery Person (Up to the reader)

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Laughter. Everywhere, there were children laughing, screaming – in delight – and playing in the dusty streets. Bright yellows, oranges, and reds were blinding in the sunlight of early afternoon. In the air, the faint, but overly-rich smell of funnel cake mixed with the loud noises and gaudy colors to assault Shinon's senses.

To say he hated such a happy, joyful, scene - that could only be identified as a Circus - was an understatement. He _loathed_ circuses to be honest, downright loathed them, and wished a slow, merciless death on them and the people who attended them.

For the life of him, he couldn't see the appeal of a kiddie wonderland that hosted loud, obnoxious kids, and absolutely no alcohol.

He most assuredly wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fact that he promised someone he would.

…Oh, who was he kidding – he couldn't care less for the promise he made. The reason he was still here was because the person he promised currently was cutting all circulation to his wrist off with her tight grip on him, pulling him through the nightmarish place.

Mia, very unlike Shinon, was enjoying herself thoroughly; green eyes filled with excitement, and a bright smile plastered on her face, and unlikely to drop anytime soon. She wore a bright orange sundress that perfectly matched her surroundings, and effectively made Shinon want to close his eyes against the assault. Her deep, purple hair was tied back loosely in a low ponytail and looked on the verge of falling out.

How the Trueblade had managed to get Shinon to agree in the first place, you ask?

Well, let's just say that the Marksman had been drinking all last night with Gatrie and had had one hell of a hangover in the morning. Shinon, being bombarded with Mia's requests for him to go to the circus, on top of a splitting headache… So maybe he hadn't known what he was agreeing to when he was just desperate for the Trueblade to leave him in peace.

Now here he was, being lead around the current bane of his existence with an iron tight grip, by no less than a girl he had probably nothing in common with. Not just that, but he was still feeling the remnants of his hangover from earlier that morning – it would probably only get worse too, from his hated surroundings.

He blinked when the girl in front of him came to an abrupt stop, and proceeded to crash into the ground with a heavy 'oof'. "…Mia, what the he…"

She wasn't paying attention to him though; instead her eyes were fixated on some odd place in the distance. Shinon, still seated in the dirt grudgingly followed her gaze to see a bright yellow, puffy object that looked like it was meant to be modeled after a castle. He slowly began to feel horrified when he saw all of the kids who were crowded in it and seemed to be jumping up and down. He attempted to take his opportunity – on the ground and out of Mia's grasp – to run away to the nearest bar possible.

He managed to stand up and take a first running step before his arm was tugged backwards and he found himself on his backside again. "Damn it, stop doing that!"

Mia just sent him a cheeky grin, "Don't even try to escape, Shin-Shin." He was tugged up and once again, the Trueblade in front of him started leading him somewhere. Though, this time, he knew what his doom was to be.

"Ashera, Mia, anything but that thing…" while he was startled to hear his voice begging and pleading, he was too desperate not to go on that thing to even care. "I don't wanna go on there, please, Mia…What if someone I know sees me?"

The purple haired woman sent an incredulous look back at him, "You say that like you actually care what other people think."

"Normally, I really don't…But this goes against my reputation."

Mia rolled her eyes, "Pfft, like going to a circus doesn't already 'go against your rep'…What's one more thing?" she turned back ahead, and Shinon was depressed to see the yellow, cheesy, castle only a few more yards ahead of them.

"Oh Goddess, please – just kill me now."

There were children. Ashera, so many children…All screaming wildly as they jumped up and down – they were covered in dirt, slobber, snot, and Goddess knows what else. They were sickeningly happy, and Mia looked absolutely delighted to see them – like she actually _enjoyed_ the little brats' happiness.

Shinon, inside, wanted to sob; and there were very few things that could do that to him.

"Woooo!!!" a voice from inside the castle screamed happily and Shinon wanted to bang his head on a post.

"Please tell me that isn't…"

Mia's eyes brightened further, and she it was obvious wasn't paying attention to the horrified man behind her, "Tormod!!" the red head appeared in the entrance of the jumping-castle-thing-nightmare, and pretty much confirmed Shinon's earlier prayer denied.

Shinon's eye twitched at the sight of the orange-garbed monstrosity – yes monstrosity – Tormod was the incarnate of the god of everything annoying and horrible in the world. Like children, happiness, un-alcoholic drinks like juice, and bouncy, yellow castles…The list could go on forever as far as Shinon was concerned.

The two hyperactive young adults, disregarding the red-head muttering behind Mia, greeted each other happily. "Mia!"

"Tor!" they embraced each other.

Tormod pulled back and eyed his friend oddly, "Since when do you hug with only one hand…" he trailed off and glanced down at the woman's grip on her companion. "Oh, that's a good idea!" the arch sage pouted, "I should have done that with my own, grumpy partner…"

"Aww… Lost 'em to the more boring things in life already?" Mia frowned at her friend; Shinon, on the other hand, rolled his eyes and briefly called the unknown escapee a lucky bastard.

The sage shrugged, "Yeah, but we've been here for a while now – I should just be glad they stayed with me willingly that long." He paused, "It's gotta be a new record!"

While listening to the two hyped up young adults was far from pleasant, it wasn't unwelcome – seeing as he wasn't on the yellow, children-filled, castle yet. Though, as Ashera would have it, Mia suddenly took note of this too.

"Ooh, I almost forgot, I wanna get on the jumpy thing!"

Tormod nodded excitedly, "It's AWESOME!!" he shouted, "You've got to try this thing." The sage ran back to the entrance of the yellow castle and jumped in, "C'mon, I'll help you with stopping Shinon from escaping. It'll be like actually stopping a criminal escaping from our captivity!"

Mia grinned widely, "That sounds fun!" she turned to Shinon, "Come on, Shiney!" once again ignoring his almost depressed expression, she tugged him forward, and into the yellow castle. Shinon was nearly ready to call it a step into hell.

Tormod jumped in behind him. There's another step.

The purple haired girl opened her mouth wide to shout; and another.

"Hey, kids! We have a criminal here – and it's our job to keep him under supervision." One by one, all of the children glanced up and exchanged excited glances. There was another step…

Tormod's voice shouted from behind, "What are you waiting for? Get him!" the kids proceeded to scream loudly and jump forward – like a wave – and crash into Shinon, knocking him onto the ground. Yep. He was most definitely in some kind of hell.

A few hours later, Shinon was asking Karma if this was her payback for abandoning the Greil Mercenaries all those years ago. Or maybe it was for always treating people near him like crap – or maybe it was because he wouldn't call sub-humans by their 'proper' name? Most likely; Karma's a bitch like that.

Shinon sighed as he rubbed his aching back, not even taking his second opportunity to escape the horrid place known as the Crimean Circus. What was the use? After hours of being mauled by grimy, stinky, loud kids, things just possibly couldn't be worse. And what was more – if he even tried to escape, Mia would just pop out of nowhere and grab him again.

He opted to lean against the wall of a closed game-stall and take a deep breath, closing his eyes and imagining better times…Practically anywhere or anytime but here – except maybe the commander's death. As the faint breeze of spring brushed across his face, rustling his hair, his eye twitched; that breeze was just too nice.

The sound of footsteps approaching made his eyes open again and he turned to glance at Mia, he was surprised to see that she actually looked a little guilty. "Hey…Shinon." He just sighed wearily before looking away from her.

"All of the kids and their parents wanted to thank you for being so kind."

A loud, disbelieving snort escaped Shinon before he broke out into a laugh, "You're kidding, right?"

Green eyes rolled, "No, I'm not." The purple haired woman approached him and slowly leaned back into the wall beside him, "I want to thank you, too… You're not really the kind of person to put up with that." He raised a brow at her, 'not really'? "The fact that you didn't injure anyone, like Tormod," she gave him a pointed look, "means a lot."

"If I had killed the little idiot like I had wanted to, I would have thrown into jail… You know how long I would have had to stay in there? I'm not getting any younger, and there's no way I'm wasting my time being in jail because of Tormod of all people. Half a day without a drink is too long, and I wasn't going to wait 23 more years for a god damn beer." Wow, was he actually rambling? Shit.

Mia just sighed, "Whatever your reasons for being even slightly…Nicer – I want to thank you." She smiled slightly, "So, I'm not going to take you to anymore bouncy-houses or anything like that," Shinon merely shuddered at the mention of said catastrophes, "I just want to do one more thing."

The red head was inclined to say 'hell no', and run off (in style of course) before she could catch him, but he took one look at the woman beside him – and hesitated. Why? How the hell should he know? He just looked over at her, met her gaze, and friggen froze.

"Fine." His normally grumbling tone was lessened slightly, and the woman's smile grew, showing pearly white teeth.

His arm was grabbed again, but this time it didn't feel like it was going be ripped out of its socket, it was more gentle. "Thanks, Shin-Shin." She softly tugged him alongside her, instead of behind and the Marksman vaguely wondered where they were going.

She led him through the circus streets, now a lot less crowded, turning left, then right, and then another right…It seemed pretty pointless to Shinon, but Mia seemed to know where she was going, so he kept his mouth shut.

Finally, they arrived in front of huge lake – by now, it was dark out – but he could still distantly see other couples out on the banks. "Mia?" she said nothing and continued to pull him further, towards the body of water.

She let go of his arm when they reached the somewhat-sandy bank right in front of the water, green eyes met with his before she sat down. Shinon held back a sigh and simply stood there awkwardly, not sure what exactly he wanted to do at this moment.

Then sparkling emeralds were aimed at his again, filled with some unknown emotion, and the red-head was sitting down next to the Trueblade. The girl smiled happily, and tentatively, she leaned up against his shoulder; when he didn't throw her off and leave immediately, she settled comfortably.

They just sat there silently for a while, before Mia broke the silence with her shifting noises; Shinon started at the feel of a smaller, but just as calloused hand encircling his own. He did sigh then, but for some reason, he clasped back.

A few more minutes, then Mia stood up and brushed herself off, Shinon blinked and glanced upwards at the girl, "…Huh?"

She stared back, smiling secretively, "Thank you, Shinon…" she suddenly leant down and pressed her lips to his cheek. Before he could react, she straightened and turned on her heel, throwing over her shoulder, "It was a nice birthday this year."

The red head could only stare at the girl's retreating back…

"…Sheesh. Why in the world would she want to spend her birthday with _me_ of all people?" he shook his head and turned forward, smirking slightly, running a hand along the spot that the birthday girl's lips had met with.


End file.
